LIVE: THE DAYS – 21/04/2009

Slightly later than originally advertised (seven weeks and one day to be precise), the boys from Devon finally make it to Manchester on their 13-date UK headlining tour.

Fresh from completing 25 shows with Scouting For Girls and releasing a single on Atlantic Records back in January of this year, it is now time to take the reigns for themselves. Unfortunately the venue tonight is rather sparsely populated.

This maybe down to the fact that it is a school night, as the genre they help to fill could be mainly listened to by a younger crowd. This eventuality does not seem to affect them in the slightest, because as they enter into the opening song ‘No Ties’, they give it their all, which does not wane at any point throughout the night.

Front man Luke belts out his lyrics whilst comfortably beating away at his keyboard as if he was born to do this from day one.

At the same time bass player Dan strides around the limited stage space playing his guitar with ease and also occasionally jumping in on vocals to great effect. After ‘Confession’, ‘Give It Away’, the self-titled ‘The Days’ and ‘Who Said Anything’, the pace is slowed with ‘Kate’.

The reason behind the postponement of the February date, was due to guitarist Tim suffering from a tropical virus and being in and out of hospital.

Thankfully, he seems to have made a full recovery, as he is on top form along with the rest of the band.

Pressed up against the front of the stage there is a handful of gleefully happy girls that are filming and photographing every onstage move. Quite often Luke will look down and smile for the cameras, much to their giggly appreciation.

As the set list reaches double figures, they give us their own personal take on Usher’s ‘Love in This Club’, the video of which got crazy viewing figures online.

To end tonight’s performance is their latest single to be released ‘Never Give Up’. This is a great pop single and is easily the stand out track of tonight, as it is the one that gets most movement from the crowd.

There is no doubting that The Days are a musically tight combo and have some great catchy tunes, for these two reasons alone, I believe they will continue to bring in more and more fans as time rolls on.

‘Accidental Editor’ None of this was planned; I’ve never been in a band, never been part of the ‘music scene’ and never expected to be the gaffer of a music website with loads of dedicated music loving writers. I bought my first record when I was 8 and haven’t stopped buying since. I love crate digging for bizarre and weird stuff, but equally happy ploughing through press releases looking/listening for something I’ve never heard before.